What Construction Can Learn from Information Technology about Using Less
While the term “circular economy” might increasingly sound like a buzzword, you might be surprised to find that you have lived through one of its key strategies many times: dematerialisation. This strategy has been discreetly used in IT for decades, and it is critical for sustainable construction.
Picture vintage computers
Gone are the days of the 1990s, when a large computer setup would comfortably sit on half a desk in a typical office or home, with a bulky monitor and a beige tower crammed with components, all entangled in wires, taking up an entire corner of a room. Those ancient computers did their job, but at great cost; their production consumed tons of plastic, metal, and rare minerals, which subsequently ended up in landfills after a few years.
Now look around, and you see that computing power has been adapted into a slim laptop that is lighter (say, less than 2kg), portable, faster, yet more powerful, and uses only a fraction of the material. This innovation has saved billions globally, especially in energy, waste and, most importantly, raw materials.
Reflect on banking: your visits to the bank would have continued, and you would have spent long hours queuing for banking services by filling out a paper form, writing cheques and receiving some cash. Today, you can access services such as payments, instant transfers (even international), account statements, and contactless payments with just a click on your mobile phone through a banking app. The evolution of digital banking has resulted in fewer papers, less time, less money spent on bank materials, a reduced material footprint and, by and large, greater convenience.
Make no mistake, these are cases of dematerialisation at play – a core “reduce” strategy in a sustainable circular economy. It focuses on delivering similar or improved value using fewer resources, such as space, materials, and energy consumed, while maintaining its function and durability. Dematerialisation is not limited to just an industry; it happens everywhere around us.
Now reflect this kind of efficiency in construction
Picture yourself in front of one of the world's largest towers or skyscrapers in a bustling metropolis like Dubai, New York City and most especially, London and looking up at the Shard: Over 300 metres, over 90 floors, over 10,000 panes of glass, over 70,000 tonnes of concrete, over 100,000 m2 floor area, and over 5000 tonnes of structural steel with enough rebar to stretch from London to Edinburgh and back – twice. That is just a single building devouring tonne of materials.
When demolished, the building will generate thousands of tonnes of “waste” – the concrete that cannot be fully reclaimed, the glass that cannot be efficiently recycled at scale, and mixed-material composites that are a major recycler’s headache because they were not designed to be separated – requiring extensive waste management steps, adding costs and doubling embodied carbon emissions. Dematerialisation can change that with efficient design from the very start.
Every component that makes up a building can be meticulously designed to be lighter, just as computers and smartphones are streamlined. A smartphone is not just for making calls anymore; it replaces your camera, GPS, alarm clock, wallet, etc. Building structures can replicate this by using fewer materials per unit of function, and by collapsing separate systems, such as structure, heating, cooling, lighting, energy generation, and a façade, into a single shell that does the work of dozens of specialist components simultaneously, as implemented in the Edge’s building in Amsterdam.
The construction industry annually consumes a significant share of the over 100 billion tonnes of raw materials extracted globally, accounts for approximately 40% of global raw material consumption and generates over 2 trillion kilograms of construction and demolition waste every year, all of which adversely impacts land use, resource depletion and carbon emissions.
Dematerialisation changes the maths on several fronts. Environmentally, it means less quarrying, lower manufacturing emissions, reduced transport, and a reduced maintenance burden. Economically, leaner specifications can reduce construction costs by up to 20%. Socially, the profession does not diminish; it shifts towards demand for designers, engineers and specialists skilled in doing more with less: pulling social value from buildings that carry less material into the world in the first place.
Get involved
Without the existence of measurement framework, the multifunctional building and the single-function skyscraper sit on the same spreadsheet; two buildings with different floor areas and different material bills, their efficiency invisible and their savings unrecognised.
My PhD research is developing a decision-making framework to accelerate dematerialisation in construction, which is grounded in indicators that capture what efficient design does across sustainability dimensions rather than simply what buildings weigh. To build something that robust and credible, it needs the judgement of people who have spent careers at the intersection of design, specification, assessment, and delivery; people who have made the decisions that current metrics cannot see.
That is why I am running a Delphi study: a structured process that brings together expert voices across the industry to build consensus on what those indicators should look like, how they should be measured, and where the boundaries of the framework should sit.
If you are a structural engineer, architect, sustainability consultant, quantity surveyor, urban planner, policymaker, researcher, or another professional related to the story, this study is for you. Participation involves three or four rounds of structured questions, conducted remotely at a pace that respects your time. In return, your input will help shape recommendations for sustainable practices in UK construction, contribute to a framework that could reshape how dematerialisation is measured and rewarded across the industry, and be acknowledged as a contributor to research with direct policy and practice implications. The study's findings aim to assist policymakers and/or practitioners in making sustainable circular economy decisions in construction.
About the author
This blog was written by Fatai Omeiza Balogun. Fatai is a doctoral researcher at the School of Civil Engineering, the University of Leeds, United Kingdom. For participation, kindly register your interest via the expression of interest form (opens in your browser) or reach out for more information via [email protected].